Tuesday 24 January 2017

Tea for Tuesday

It's funny how you never really move out of your parents' house. For years and years (14 in my case) boxes and bits flow and trickle into your house. So it was when Mom found one of my four childhood tea sets. I had three plastic ones - avocado green, white and ornate, blue and modern - and the real china one I am writing about today.

I think Mom secretly liked this one best because it is the only one I still have. It lived in her china cabinet, which is probably why it survived with the box and all the pieces. I don't know what happened to the plastic ones - perhaps like so many toys they went "missing" while at school.

Holding the pieces of this set makes me feel five years old again. Mom would sometimes fill the teapot with real tea but most of the time I used juice or water on my own. My parents were really not playful parents, so teatime was a solo endeavour for me plus or minus some stuffed animals.

Mom was curious to know if the tea set was worth anything, but a quick Google revealed, no. These sets by Summco are quite common and probably worth as much as what they sold for in 1981!

Saturday 7 January 2017

Escape from 2016

2016 is finally over! How has your first week of the new year been? Just because it’s a new year doesn’t mean you can toss 2016 aside, however! Actually, it’s a good idea every year to escape the old year. Let me explain in three ways that don’t involve losing weight, quitting smoking or hitting the gym.

1. Update your resume

Even if you are happy with your job, update your resume! It's easy to forget all the new skills or projects tackled in the previous year and each year your memory will get fuzzier and fuzzier. Trust me on this :D This is also important for artists and writers who may have exhibited or published. Not only will you have a handy reference, you’ll always be prepared. After six years I haven’t forgotten trying to scramble everything when my group was laid off. Writing a new resume is painful and can be a chore - it’s much easier to keep an old one up to date.

2. Clean up your phone

Rather than buying a newer phone or more storage for it, check your downloaded files folder for PDFs, Word docs and other things you may have downloaded over the year (or years). Chuck those blurry selfies too :-D A little organization will go a long way. I always like to dump the previous year photos in a yearly folder on our home backup system after selecting the ones I want to keep.

3. Back up your files

If you still have some Christmas money from Grandma left, it might be wise to invest it in a backup solution if you don't already have one. It's not glamorous, but it's the gift that will keep on giving, especially when data disaster strikes. Remember this rule of thumb - have an original, a backup and a backup backup. As hubs likes to remind me, it’s not only important to have backups, but to be able to restore from backups. If you do have a backup system already, make sure it is still accessible. And don't forget to backup #1 and #2 :-)

Have a great year friends!